Project?
“…Things start meaning
something when they end: because that’s when the story begins.” Not your story,
not mine either, as Edgar said. Whatever happens: it’s our story.”
Key words: strength,
will, power, victim, sex, pain, ecstasy, hate, faith, endurance, patience,
suffering, obedience, indifference, incident, death
/first attempt/
It’s the sign of the times – you either turn against everyone else, or
see the enemy in yourself…or you just flicker until something happens. Maybe
you’re slowly, silently committing suicide – there are countless ways to do so.
Everything happens in the name of survival. Survival, physical survival
begins to mean something when hunger starts…then comes distrust with suspicious
looks, and slimy, empty, otherwise courteous smiles. Even when it’s been
physically overcome, hunger remains, and becomes a habit – hunger for more, a
chronic hunger born from the feeling of inner emptiness…
You want to survive, and prosper. Money is the sign of the times. But
the auction price of a soul has not been announced yet. Faust is out.
Unhappiness means you’ve been a victim of bad
circumstance, at least that’s the way you want to see it, otherwise you’d have
to admit you’ve been running against yourself for a long time. You’ve set off
without knowing who you are, until one day you’re standing in front of your own
remains. You try to gather them, try to collect yourself…you try to stick the
pieces into place with dry spit. Nobody notices you, you don’t notice anybody.
Until someone reaches for the integrity you’ve glued together. Outrage rises
from your guts and you’re ready to kill. You suppress the instinct, but your
blood has been poisoned. The venom reaches your brain. It leads you to
masochism. You become sadistic towards your own self. What must be tolerated,
how much more of it, and for how much longer… you accept your fate. It must
have been written in the stars. You dare not start writing, so you start
drinking. Like many others, it’s customary, it’s the sign of the times, and
times are hard, they’re not getting any better. You see red. Someone’s in your
way, quite by accident, unsuspecting. It turns out that your way is invisible.
What a pity. A pity for that someone. You realize later, but it’s a bit too
late. Until you too end up in someone’s way, unsuspecting…
VZ
Project?
/second attempt/
Introduction
The desire to understand the relevant present
inevitably raises questions about issues like aggression, auto-aggression, and
accident. It is unnecessary to mention the active content of these three ideas,
since we are not only witnesses, but also participants, dramatis personae,
conscious or involuntary executives or victims. In other words, aggression,
auto-aggression, and accident not only surround us as part of our everyday
lives - they are within us, and we, whether we realize it or not, are the
instrument leading to what we call "mortification."
The project "Aggression,
Auto-aggression, Accident" will attempt to scrutinize, analyze, visualize,
interpret, and theorize, with the help of an organized theoretic discussion,
artistic interpretation and practices, the reasons and tendencies in today's
world concerning psychological balance on an individual level alongside the
tensions unbalancing the present social/political reality. They cannot be
defined, analyzed, or interpreted in religious, ethnic, urban, national, or
regional isolation in a time we claim is global.
"Aggression, Auto-aggression,
Accident" aims to provoke, encompass, and describe issues from within the
psyche; the personal process of reacting against socialized global reality,
which will become evident through the practice we call art. The project will
also analyze the inter-subjective relationships in the general frame of
social/political relations, the platform of which is the global financial
capital known as relevant critical thought/theory.
Project?
/tirth attempt/
The two sides
of aggression, viewed from the banal metaphor of the coin, give it respectively
authenticity and value.
Aggression as
government politics does not excite the imagination unless you are either part
or a victim of such politics. Aggression as government politics is evident,
clear, the signs are everywhere, mostly on international news broadcasts. It is
less evident in the local news, invisible in everyday life…
Aggression in
everyday life is a whole other issue. It is dislodged, eroticized,
pathologized, criminalized, and taboo. Dislodged aggression has no choice but
to turn inward, becoming auto-aggression, the results of which we as
respectable, active, and diligent citizens refuse to accept as anything other
than an accident. What follows is, at best, a fleeting compassion and desire
for charity, usually around Christmas time.
If, according
to Freud, aggression constitutes the world, if the displeasure of departing
from the mother's breast, the discomfort of disrupted happiness, when the calm
utterly timeless bliss of cooing, sucking, and evenly distributed warmth is
shattered, ripped apart, and demolished, the cry of outrage signals the
existence of a world, on the outside, and another, be it hostile, but also
desired, indispensable, needed. Wanting, the vulgar, wild wanting to have and
to hold is here. Aggression constitutes the world, therefore through aggression
the world is, or is it?
If aggression
constitutes the world, does auto-aggression constitute the inside world, alienated
or otherwise the result of presumptive dissatisfaction, an inner battle of the
utopic trinity of Soul, Body and Spirit, the evident and fatal damage in the
retaliation of the Onlooker are none other than an accident, mal chance, bad
luck, fate, etc. a battle in which if the Body looses, that means Death, if the
Soul looses, Hell follows, if the Spirit looses - along comes Misery. The choice is yours.
And now - the Good Luck Girls…
Project?
/last attempt/
Goodness is submission, obedience. Freedom is always open to rebellion.
Goodness is
connected to the impenetrable character of the rule.
The utopian morality of freedom melts into the conventional morality,
which unites people
into a system of obligations. Only the morality of communication - and
the devotion, which
determines communication, surpasses utilitarian
morality.
…tears are the climax in the emotion of communication…
after bataille
1.Theory panel
2.Exhibition
3.Discussion panel
1.Theory Panel
Main Intention
The theory panel intends to clarify and
theoretically define the possible aspects of interpreting aggression,
auto-aggression, and accident as a living part of our present. Theoreticians
from the fields of sociology, psychology, philosophy, and aesthetics will be
invited to present their views and analysis according to their given field
concerning aggression, auto-aggression, accident, the reasons, the way they
work, what they lead to, and their consequences in individual/personal and
social/public aspects.
Preliminary Themes
The suggested themes are only intended to give a
general outline to the possible scope of development of the discourse. The
necessary direction and focus of the discussion will emerge through the
interpretations of the theoretic panel, thus avoiding any prior steering or
limitation in quest and analysis.
·
Aggression as a pursuit of life
·
Suppressed aggression – a requirement for the functioning of an
individual in contemporary society
·
Suppressed aggression – depression, implosion, cancer?
·
Suppressed aggression as depression or death drive (Freud)
·
Auto-destruction (a pursuit of death) enjoying self-destruction
·
The hostile world? And/or the hostile “self”
·
The Other – always an enemy, “I am The Other,” the war begins
·
War – violence instead of power, the use of power in a pure, peremptory
way
·
The aesthetics of horror
·
Fucking – aggressive, auto-aggressive or a good/bad coincidence
·
Indolence and indifference. Private space and freedom. Alienation – the
final straw (imperial rule – divide and conquer)
·
Accident – the innocent passers-by
·
Constraint, power, violence, passivity
·
Faith, ecstasy, hate
·
The division of soul, spirit, and body – off and online practices,
chat-rooms, the gym, plastic surgery…Division and stress.
·
Uncertainty in the body and its origin – genetic engineering –
aggression towards the individual on a molecular level
·
Flight from reality – a way out, a necessity, or a dead end – the
loneliness of the long- distance runner (my “self” ‘s contemporary)
Goals
A relevant analysis by a panel of interested
theoreticians from the fields of philosophy, sociology, cultural and political
science, psychoanalysis, and aesthetics in an attempt to:
·
Clarify the present-day actions and behavior
of the globalized individual as a part of the mechanics of power.
·
Follow the psychopathological resonance of
globalized capital in private practice and life.
·
Research whether the present system of
ideology produces crises and ideological “black holes,” and whether fascism is
developing into new dimensions as a totalitarian system, when in fact the main
economic system is global and total. Ways and means for making aggression
legitimate.
·
Define what a “good” citizen means today and
how that individual functions as a supposed citizen of the world. Tolerance,
political correctness, and cultivated aggression.
·
Figure out if today’s “good” citizen of the
world is considered the American citizen and why.
·
Define aggressive patriotism, or globally applied patriotism.
·
See how and why today’s ideological system
produces personal crises and emotional and moral breakdowns, and seek ways for
remedying that.
·
Personal economy, virtualizing personal
space, and the destructive consequences on the psyche due to the body’s escape
into virtual space.
·
Accident
– something bad suddenly happens (personal); an
incident, death…is it just a bad coincidence; bad luck; karma, or do we
intentionally/involuntarily avoid or dismiss the fact that maybe:
1.
The accident is a result of people’s passivity, and that can be considered
“passive aggression?” 2. The accident as a result of
suppressed aggression (which, according to traditional – Freudian –
psychoanalysis, is pure depression!) To what extent is suppressing aggressive
instinct part of the required incorporation into contemporary society, and what
are the psychological consequences for the individual. Is there a relevant
substitute today for the ritual channeling of aggression primitive societies
had (sacrificial offerings) in order to vent out aggression instead of suppress
it…? When somebody “looses it,” the result is only and always chronicled as an “accident.” 3.
The accident as a result of auto-aggression, in other words, as a death drive
(Freud)
·
Sexual relations, limitations, and taboos,
the aggression and auto-aggression that accompanies them as a potential
possibility drawn from such limitations and taboos.
·
What could be assumed a consequence or damage
caused by new screen communication via the Internet and new technology where
physical contact is practically zero. Aggressive Autism.
·
Must we consider ourselves actual
participants in the political world today and how?
·
The meaning and meaninglessness of
passive/active perception of the present as a unified social/political system –
a no-win situation?
·
How and why must contemporary value systems
be rationalized and can that affect theoretical concepts concerning the
social/political system outside of perfecting it as a device for control,
power, and exploitation?
·
What is anarchy?
·
Can violence be used against authority?
·
Anarchy of the mind – causes, reasons,
results, epilog
·
Conclusions
·
The need for conclusions.
Realization
Format of
the theory panel
Symposium
Duration
two days within the “Aggression…” exhibit
·
Points
of Departure
o Historical Helmut Berding
o Sociological
§
Theunissen
/Freie Universitaet, Berlin,/
§
Slavoj
Zizek,
§
Sally Jane NORMAN /France/ paper ‘aggression as a theatre as aggression’
§
Klemens Golf /Germany/
§
Baudrillard /under investigation/
o
Psychological
/under construction/
o Biological Konrad
Lorenz
o Theology /under construction/
Participants Bulgaria:
Dimiter Sashev, philosopher / confirmed
Prof. Bogdan Bogdanov / tbc
Zlatomir Zlatanov, paper ‘The Bulgarian
Oedipus’ / confirmed/
Orlin Todorov, psychotherapist/confirmed/
Angel Angelov / tbc
Alexander Marinov, psychiatrist / tbc
International:
(optional)
Aleksander Gubas/Belgrade/
Ivan Stanev (Berlin, Paris)
The Sofia City Art Gallery
The National Academy of Art, Sofia
Conducting the symposium
Printing the full texts of lectures and presentations in an exhibition
catalog or as a separate publication
2. Exhibit
Part of the project will be presented as an
exhibit of contemporary art and will intend to research through the
self-analysis of selected artists their attitude towards themselves within the
frame of the key words and the themes of the theory panel. They will, therefore,
present by means of contemporary art the seeds and germ of violence; the hidden
and evident self-destructive instincts of the individual; the fear and
aggression of survival. They will attempt to raise questions concerning the
extent to which the methods of social control influence the individual’s
psyche; the importance of self-appreciation; how human nature can be expressed
and summed up into social moods and tendencies channeled by the dominating
ideology in wars and military operations. The contemporary context of
humanism/humanity and where the innate personal psychological imperative
concerning the Other lies, and what freedom means in that respect. If it is
true that “my freedom ends where yours starts,” then obviously that is also
where indifference towards the Other begins. And the victims of indifference
are classified as “accidents.” The project also intends to inquire how and
where exactly the said personal freedom ends, that invisible, personal Gaza
Strip, overrun and questioned daily. Violence will be researched as an
individual’s innate potential and/or a natural reaction provoked by
circumstance, which, if suppressed, turns inward, and leads to
self-destruction. A self-destruction that may reach collective dimensions.
Problems
·
To seek, find, research, and interpret the
reasons for and the forms of individual aggression, auto-aggression, passive
auto-aggression that develops and becomes evident only as an accident.
·
To figure out the way in which collective
aggression is a sum of multiple personal aggressions.
·
To research to what extent aggression is a
destructive and self-destructive instinct when directed inward.
·
To inquire whether the personal, individual,
intimate, and secret desire for aggression is universal, operative, and not
subject to geographical regions, social background, and development of the
community.
·
To inquire if aggression is voicelessly
encouraged and whether it is a natural part of a contemporary individual’s
behavior in today’s capitalist social/political system.
·
To present for reconsideration the customary,
basic, and leading ideas in social conscience concerning violence, pain,
misery, unhappiness, and death from a personal, intimate, and emotional point
of view, along with the intimate, personal, vulnerable feelings in life and the
relativity
of the ideas good/bad, meaning/meaninglessness, winner/victim, bliss/suffering,
success/loss…prosperity.
In this respect, the project will be left
open for developments and additions to be made by the international participants
even after it has been completed and presented to the public.
Goals
·
By means of contemporary visual art and the
personal views of the participating artists, to raise questions and seek
answers from the public as to why human actions and behaviors are criminalized,
psychoanalysed, made a visible/invisible part of official government politics
and political conduct, thus becoming more or less taboo.
Realization
Stages
-
Selection of contemporary artists with an
active interest in occurances on a local, regional, and global basis, with a
tendency towards self-analysis, and with an active personal and creative
viewpoint.
-
Conducting individual discourse regarding the
themes of the project as an attempt to outline the individual presentation of
each of the artists.
-
Holding a meeting-discussion of the general
theme and presenting/sharing the individual projects orally and in writing.
-
Combining projects with a similar stylistic
approach.
-
Realization of the individual projects.
-
Organizing the exhibit.
-
Conducting a public discussion (for the
duration of the exhibit) of the theme and the questions raised by the artists
in the course of their work.
-
Issuing a bilingual catalog and a multimedia
disc which will include illustrations of the works as a final result of the
complete composition, along with the process
of their realization – texts, personal
preliminary notes, audio and video archives from the discussion and meeting
held on the subject of the theme. The catalog will include as an essential part
the texts and presentations of the theoretical symposium “Aggression,
Auto-aggression, Accident.”
-
Completing a web-site with its own address
that will chronicle the stages of development and the final result of the
project.
-
Presenting the project as a working plan and
its results abroad at appropriate theoretical and art forums.
-
Open stage: developing the project with
international participation.
Specifications of style and genre
It is assumed that the contemporary aspects
of presenting and perceiving aggression manipulation, auto-aggression, and
accident are visually and stylistically defined (pre-defined) by
mass-communication. In this respect, the use of means of expression derived
from electronic processing and presenting information in accord with the
defined and specified stylistics of the press are preferred and encouraged.
-
video art and video installations
-
sound installations and single-channel
audio-projects
-
photography (classic, black and white)
-
digital photography
-
interactive multimedia installations and
CD-ROM
-
Internet projects
-
printed materials (posters, postcards,
billboards)
not excluding
-
installations and sites
-
conceptual art
-
fine art / sculpture
Participants
in the exhibit
International
Pipilotti Rist
Shelly Siliver www.shellysilver.com
Jordan Crandall /USA/
Klemens Golf
/Germany/
Vanda Playford /UK/
Adina Bar-on /israel/
Clarisse
Hahn
/France
tanja Ostojic belgrade/dusseldorf/ http://www.cac.org.mk/capital/projects/tanja/
david d'agostino
/USA/bulgaria
URTICA art and media research group /YU/
www.urtica.org
(optional)
Aleksander Gubas – belgrade
Guia Rigvava
germany/georgia,russia
Co-curators
Stephanie Benzaquen /co-curator/ - opal gallery Tel Aviv
/israel/
Michael Gillespie /Foxy Productions NYC/
paula boettcher /co-curator/ galerie paula boettcher berlin http://www.galeriepaulaboettcher.de/
(optional)
Ileana Teleaga
/co-curator/ West University , Timisoara, Romania/ confirmed
Jurij Krpan /co-curator/ confirmed/ kapelica gallery
ljubliana
www.kapelica.org
presentations/video screening/interactive
susane jaschko transmediale berlin // confirmed under certain conditions/
(optional)
Aleksander Gubas /Belgrade
Mark Paulline/Survival Reasearch Laboratiries/USA www.srl.org
/tbc
bulgarian
Lilia Abadjieva
/directior/ /confirmed/
Raina Markova, writer sofia/burgas/ confirmed/ http://submagenta.dir.bg/
oleg mavromatti russia/ confirmed/
Peter Canev artist/ confirmed/
Dr. Galentin Gatev, artist, dermatologist, veneorologist/ confirmed/
http://www.drgatev.com/
Boryana Dragoeva, artist http://hammer.prohosting.com/~dragoeva/
Ventsislav zankov/me/, www.ctrl-z.org/zankov
adelina popnedeleva/ confirmed/
rasssim www.rassim.com
Nadejda Lyahova, artist
NO POINT GROUP /sofia
Video screenings/ presentations
Susanne Jaschko transmediale (Berlin) /
confirmed/
Mark Paulline/Survival Reasearch Laboratiries/USA www.srl.org
/tbc
More (optional)
Zadruga , Belgrade
Milentiye Pandilovski (Macedonia), co-curator
/?/
Dimos Dimitrios (Greece) /?/
Expected
results
By presenting reflections in the form of a
complete art production and practical artistic realization, to invoke a public
discussion of the place and role of the person in relation to the person’s own
life as opposed to the Other, the others; the person’s place as an object
within the person’s own self and an object of society in critical,
manipulative, consumer, ideological, predefined, and personal situations which
provoke violence. With its successful realization, the project inevitably
raises the question of place, role, and meaning of the contemporary artist as
an active subject of relevant social reality.
3.Discussion
Forum
The purpose of the discussion forum is to
raise a public discussion regarding the exhibited works of art, as well as the
claims made by the theory panel through an informal meeting between the
theoreticians interested in the theme, the participants in the exhibit with the
results of their work and reflections on their work process, the audience, and
the general public.
Conducting
the discussion forum
-
The participating artists will present their works and/or viewpoint of the present within
the frame of “Aggression, Auto-aggression, Accident.”
-
Commentary of theoreticians and specialists
interested in the theme
-
Questions and comments by the audience and
the press
Place
The exhibition hall, among the works of art
exhibited
Time
During the exhibit, after the theory panel is
held
May 13, 2002
Sofia, Bulgaria
Author:
VZ
To be continued:
In the
next episode…
That’s a first.
Patriotism is en vogue, homemade – patriotism
at home, homicide at home; if the Earth is home, then who are the hosts? At
home, the best thing to be is the pet…
The End